Welcome to INNOVATOR, an update on school and district transformation from North Carolina New Schools. Our newsletter aims to inform practitioners, policy makers, and friends of public education on innovation, workforce development, research and success stories from schools, districts and regions across the state. Please contact us to provide feedback and suggest ideas.
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Students shine at 2013 Summer Institute
 | | Kwizera Jesus-Marie |
Four years ago, Kwizera Jesus-Marie had just arrived in the United States, having fled genocide in Rwanda and years of struggle in refugee camps across central and southern Africa. Both his parents were killed when he was 18 months old. On Tuesday, Kwizera stood before a crowd of hundreds of educators assembled in a carpeted ballroom at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel near Research Triangle Park to tell them about his dreams and the school - Middle College at GTCC Greensboro - that is helping him achieve them. Gennifer Jones came from rural Anson County to share her story, no less poignant, about a shy girl fro
 | | Gennifer Jones |
m middle school who blossomed in high school, thanks to the care, encouragement and challenging instruction from her teachers at Anson Early College. With poise and humor even few adults can match, Gennifer told a story about education at its best. She told a story about growth, and transformation. Ethan Edwards is the kind of guy who probably would have excelled wherever he'd gone to high school. But he excelled even more given greater opportunity and challenge in far-off Macon County in the Appalachians,
 | | Ethan Edwards |
where he's from. Sure, he was valedictorian of his class at Macon Early College. He also graduated summa cum laude from Southwestern Community College with an associate degree. Now he's studying mechanical engineering at N.C. State University. Kiara Antonella Arguijo is quick to seize new opportunities that come her way at East Duplin High School in an agricultural
 | | Kiara Antonella Arguijo |
county working hard to create the kinds of opportunities for teaching and learning that put students on course for success in college, careers and life. She told educators at Summer Institute that they shouldn't ease up on their leadership for excellence in education. They're helping change the lives of students like her across Duplin County and across North Carolina. For all the important discussion during the three days of Summer Institute about pedagogy, policy and practice, the most powerful and concrete message came from the students themselves. Read more - in their own words - the success stories of Kwizera and Gennifer.
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Keynote: Culture, mission drive change
 | | Pedro Noguera |
Pedro Noguera highlighted success stories of schools in New York City and Oakland, Calif., to illustrate innovations that engage students and boost student performance.
But the New York University education professor could have been talking about North Carolina's own innovative schools and the design principles they follow when he flashed a PowerPoint slide on the screen to show his "Five Essential Ingredients for School Improvement." Echoing much of the work underway by NC New School's partner schools, Noguera urged nearly 1,000 educators assembled for this year's Summer Institute main keynote address "to create the schools that our kids deserve." Noguera focused much of his talk on the need to build capacity within schools to ensure that schools are effectively meeting the needs of all students, regardless of their backgrounds and differences. "Until a child's background doesn't determine how well a student does in school, we have work to do," he said. "If your school is reproducing existing patterns of inequality, you have work to do." And he could have been reading straight from the NC New Schools design principle that addresses powerful teaching and learning and the Common Instructional Framework shared by partner schools when he said this: "Too many teachers, especially in high schools, confuse teaching with talking. Covering the book and developing a love of learning are two different things. In far too many schools, we expect students to learn the way we teach. If they don't, we blame them or their parents. Ultimately, Noguera said, effective change that drives real improvements in student engagement and achievement depends on a shared culture "where learning is sacred." "Nothing will change without the culture," he said. "That kind of culture is what distinguishes the best schools from the others. We need to create a culture in schools where it's cool to be smart." "Great schools convince kids that knowledge is power."
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STEM Day links classrooms, employers
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Alycia Worthy Ali, of City of Medicine Academy, and Dea Riha, of Middle College at UNCG, working in a GlaxoSmithKline laboratory.
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Leading employers that depend on highly skilled workers opened their research labs and production floors Monday to more than 150 secondary school educators from across North Carolina who are preparing students for the 21st century workforce.
Teachers and administrators from innovative schools, districts and regions in the state that focus on science, technology, engineering and math -- STEM in shorthand -- participated in NC New Schools' second annual STEM Day to help foster stronger connections between classrooms and businesses.
Educators learned about cutting-edge agriscience, energy, data analysis, and the development of sophisticated industrial products during work-based learning experiences at a dozen employers ranging from small local companies to large global corporations. They left with new ideas about how to teach their students about real-world applications for the STEM subjects they teach.
"After spending the last 30 years in school, I was finally able to answer this question today: "When will I ever use this?" said Kevin Smith, an administrator from Duplin County Schools. "It was great to hear slope, derivatives, and Y intercept in the real world and also see the engineering design process in practice."
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FYI
North Carolina adopted the Common Core State Standards in 2010 as its Standard Course of Study for English language arts and mathematics and began implementation statewide in all public schools in the 2012-13 school year.
The Common Core State Standards:
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Data snapshot
Early college students are more likely to be enrolled in college by the end of high school compared to similar students in other schools, according to a new study by American Institutes of Research released this week.
The randomized longitudinal study tracked 1,044 students who enrolled in 10 early college high schools nationwide and compared them to 1,414 students who didn't.
Inside Higher Ed reported that the study found that attending an early college high school could have both intermediate and long-term outcomes for low-income students. The findings support the notion that "finding students to believe in and supporting them," could make a great difference in a student's academic success, according to Andrea Berger, the study's project director and a principal research analyst at the American Institutes for Research.
Read the full study, Early College, Early Success
Percentage of students enrolled in college five years after starting 9th grade
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